“Blue Slip” Process Vital to Protect Lower Courts

CONSERVATIVE PIPELINE TO THE COURTS: “The Federalist Society has for years been singularly focused on building a farm team of judicial nominees who subscribe to a philosophy that is hostile to the advancement of social and economic progress in the country,” said Nan Aron, president of our sister organization Alliance for Justice, in an article in The New Yorker about the conservative pipeline to the Supreme Courts. “Behind the scenes, during Republican Administrations, they are very engaged in identifying and recruiting for judges candidates who are ultra-conservatives—who are opposed to our rights and liberties across the board, whether it’s women, the environment, consumer protections, worker protections.”

JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH’S IMPACT ON THE HIGH COURT: BBC News described six upcoming Supreme Court cases in which newly-confirmed Justice Neil Gorsuch could be highly influential, involving President Trump’s travel ban, gun rights, religious freedom, a shooting on the border of Mexico, and voting rights.

BLUE SLIPS NECESSARY TO PROTECT LOWER COURTS: Nan Aron, president of our sister organization Alliance for Justice, urged Democrats to “insist the president avoid nominating judges whose philosophies are extreme…immerse themselves in the records of those nominees, and oppose those whose rulings and writings betray radical views.” Aron explained the necessity of protecting the “blue-slip” process that allows home-state senators to decide whether nominees from their states should move forward in a U.S. News & World Report op-ed. The Senate must be very careful in confirming judges because “real harm will be done to millions of people if appeals courts are packed with ideological extremists, who tend to emerge in the absence of bipartisan consultation,” said Aron.

FEDERAL COURT HOLDS THAT TEXAS VOTER ID LAW IS DISCRIMINATORY: A federal judge ruled that a Texas voter ID law was passed with intent to discriminate against minority voters “despite its proponents’ assertions that it was necessary to combat voter fraud,” reported The Hill. ​